Sunburn
by Shini02
Summary: Oneshot. AU. They were never supposed to be a tragedy. JoshxJulia.


**Disclaimer:** If I owned X-Men, it would be a happier place.

**A/N:** Written for TheLostMaximoff. Happy belated birthday!

* * *

**Sunburn**

Car upon car had passed him by, speeding passed as though the drivers hadn't seen him, but he knew they had. He was hard to miss, being the only person walking the edge of the highway, heavy guitar case in one hand and a stuffed duffel bag slung over a shoulder. But that was just the way of the world, he supposed. Every man for himself. Survival of the fittest, of the _superior_.

He wasn't quite sure how long he'd been walking, but his back was burning through his shirt and beads of sweat were falling into his eyes, blurring his wavering vision further. However long it had been, he decided, it had been too long and that he was in desperate need of a short break from his roadside trek. He set the guitar case down, sloughed off the duffel bag and sat down on a rock that scorched through his jeans, making him shift uncomfortable until the burning sensation subsided.

He rifled through his bag, pulling out a bottle of water. He grimaced, realizing it had been warmed by the heat, but he'd make do. He had no choice but to. He broke the seal, twisted off the cap, took a greedy mouthful, then bent forward and dumped a good portion of the contents over his head. After capping the bottle again, he tossed his head back and ran his hands through his hair, down the back of his neck. It was mildly refreshing, but refreshing nonetheless.

Using one hand to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun, he looked skyward. There wasn't a cloud in sight, save for thin wisps that streaked across the blue. Were he not stuck in the middle of nowhere with a quickly diminishing supply of water and a constant, throbbing ache in his back, maybe he would have thought the day to be a fairly nice one. But circumstances being what they were, he was far from enjoying himself.

Hearing the distant but distinct rumble of an engine down the road, he turned his attention away from the sky and back to the highway, watching, waiting, expecting nothing.

If the world hadn't made him out to be so cynical, he perhaps would have believed he fell in love with her the moment the car came to a halt and she rolled her window down and asked, "do you need a ride?"

* * *

She didn't ask where he came from, only where he was going, and laughed when he told her he didn't have a specific destination in mind.

"Alright then," she said, smiling mostly to herself. "So, do you have a name, wanderer?"

He somehow found the gumption to smile back, albeit faintly. "Josh Guthrie," he said, "an' you're?"

"Julia Cabot," she replied, introducing herself with a smile more brilliant than the last. "It's nice to meet you, Josh."

He wondered how she could say that to a complete stranger, then decided it didn't matter. "Same t'you."

"You're lucky I came along when I did," she said, stealing a glance at him before turning her attention back to the road. "A little while longer out there and you would have burned up."

"Prob'ly," he agreed, chuckling dryly. "So, Ah s'pose yer a real life saver, huh?"

Her smile softened again, and she kept her eyes on the road as she said, "if you want me to be."

He wasn't sure why, but he silently decided that was exactly what he wanted her to be.

* * *

They stopped at a small roadside diner and made small talk over cold Pepsi and grilled hot dogs.

"Ya never told me where yer headin'," he realized, a small smirk on his chapped, sun-dried lips.

She shrugged with one shoulder, twirling her straw between her fingers, watching the bubbles she disturbed rise through the amber liquid. "I'm not entirely sure, either. Since I finished with school, I decided to do some soul searching." There was a pause and her straw became still between her fingers. "I don't know if I'm ready to go home just yet."

He took a sip of his drink, set it down on the table, then said, "so'n don't," as if it were that simple.

"No?" she asked. It sounded to him as though she'd been waiting for somebody to give her permission to run free if that was what she wanted to do. He'd never had been fond of cages.

"Nope," he confirmed, and it really was as simple as he'd made it sound.

She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, and smiled when she released it. "Well, then I guess it's just you and me and the open road until we figure out where we're going."

The idea was inexplicably appealing.

* * *

They spent the night at a cheap motel, their room decked with layers of dust, cracked paint and scuffed floor boards.

From the bed, between the musty sheets, she watched quietly, slightly astonished, as he made himself comfortable in the lumpy armchair by the window. She took a breath, made some room and said quietly, "Josh, come to bed."

Though he'd been raised a southern gentleman, he didn't think twice before getting into bed with her.

"Yer awful trustin', y'know," he said, his back to her. "Lettin' a stranger sleep in the same bed as you."

She giggled, a sound that seemed to make the staleness of the room dissipate for a few seconds. "We've known each other for a whole day, we're not strangers anymore."

"Still don' mean ya know me," he pointed out with a dry chuckle of his own.

"That's true," and he felt her shifting, turning onto her opposite side to face his back. "But I think I'd like to."

He was quiet for perhaps a few seconds too long before he replied, "Ah don' think ya wanna do that." Because he was all wrong inside, twisted and ugly and a far cry from normal.

She put a hand to his back, felt something ripple beneath his skin. "Let me be the judge of that."

* * *

"Do you think it's crazy to put all your faith in someone you just met? To believe that, for whatever reason, you were meant to meet that person and that they'll somehow make everything in your life make sense again?"

A pause, a long stare into the rear view mirror and the trail of highway dust behind them as they drove away from the motel.

A passing thought, a moment of clarity.

"Not at all."

A smile.

"I didn't think so."

* * *

"So, I was wondering something."

"Yeah?"

"You have a guitar, but how come you never play it?"

He shrugged, letting his arm hang out the open window. "Haven't felt like it, Ah s'pose."

"Do you think, maybe, one day, you could play for me?" she asked, giving him a quick smile.

He was quiet for a moment before saying, "sure."

Because this girl, this pretty girl that came into his life out of nowhere, could put the poetry back into his soul.

* * *

That night, he played for her. Nothing specific, whatever he felt; a song just for her.

The next day, while she drove them through a small town, he put words to the melody. Later, on the roof of her car with the sky beginning to bleed orange and red, he sang to her and took her breath away.

"Be careful, Josh Guthrie," she warned. "That's a quick way to a girl's heart."

He plucked at his guitar strings, gave her the first real smile she'd seen him wear since they met and said, "lemme know when Ah get there."

* * *

They fell into true love and it was the most wonderful feeling in the world – until he remembered they shouldn't be in love at all, because he was one of nature's greatest mistakes.

It was the dead of night when he snuck out of the car, careful not to wake her, walked a good distance into a wooded clearing and sloughed off his shirt. He took a breath, closed his eyes and let it happen: large, red feathered wings tore through his flesh, jutting out from the grooves beside his shoulder blades. He spread them wide, letting out a quiet sigh of relief. They had been hidden away for so long, it felt good to just stretch them, even if it was only for a moment.

The sound of twigs snapping behind him caused him to whirl around, and he was met with a pair of wide brown eyes staring at him. Specifically, the feathery appendages sticking out of his back.

And this was why a part of him had always favored the idea of having never met her to begin with.

"Y-you have wings," she stated.

"Yeah." What else was he supposed to say? It wasn't as though he could deny the glaringly obvious.

"You're a mutant," she said, slowly, as though afraid to say the words.

This time he said nothing, just waited for her to continue with whatever it was she was going to do. He just prayed that if she was going to scream and run away, she'd do it fast and get it done and over with.

But she didn't scream, and she didn't run. She came to him, reached out a trembling hand to press her palm to one of his wings. She dragged her fingers over the feathers, then withdrew her hand and held it to her chest.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Most humans don' like mah kind, 'case ya haven' noticed" he drawled bitterly.

She wrapped her arms around him so suddenly he stumbled back a step. He looked down at her as she nestled her head beneath his chin.

"I'd love you no matter what."

* * *

"You don't have to hide around me anymore. When we're alone, let them out."

"But – "

Habits were hard to break.

"Just be yourself."

But he'd manage for her.

* * *

Maybe it was weeks or months after they'd met, it didn't particularly matter to either, when he asked, "can Ah ask ya somethin'?"

"Always," she said, leaning back against him as they sat on the roof of the car. She pulled his hands from her shoulders and held them in her own to her chest.

"Do ya believe this was meant t'be?"

She was, for once, quiet, thumbing his knuckles. "I believe in love and fate and that we all have a path laid out for us," she said softly. "And I believe that our paths were meant to cross."

He gripped her hands in his. "Me, too."

* * *

Autumn was fast approaching, but the sun put forth an effort to blare down on them once more. They laid on a hill in a field of wild flowers, her nestled against his shoulder, carpeted by a wing, protected by a strong arm. And he stared at the sky, one hand raised, reaching for sunfire.

"Ah feel like Icarus," he murmured. "Headed straight inta the sun."

"What do you mean?"

"Nothin' this good ever lasts," he went on, voicing internal fears that had been ravaging him for the longest while. "What we got goin' on here, s'gonna burn us, and we're gonna drown."

She chuckled softly and shook her head, placing a hand over his throbbing heart. "You really think that?"

"Ya think otherwise?"

"I do, as a matter of fact."

"Let's hear it."

"We're not the next Romeo and Juliet," she said, slowly easing herself up, careful not to crush his wing beneath her. "This isn't a tragedy waiting to happen." She straddled his hips, put both hands to his chest and bent forward until her lips were brushing against his. "This is forever. This is the greatest love story never told."

* * *

And somewhere, worlds away, tragedy has struck.

There's a scar on his chest that will never heal and she's dead on the grass, pretty even in death, and he's crying, begging, pleading to join her but he's tried and he can't and this life is nothing but one big cruel joke.

There's an angel at his side, trying to comfort him, but there is no comfort now. There is nothing. Nothing but the sun and the ocean and the plummet between the two.

-End


End file.
